How To Use This Book
Let’s lay a few guidelines for the next 30 days.
Come With a Purpose - How to Discover Your Own Personal “Plot”
So you want to get yourself in shape, huh? Mind, body, and spirit.
Just as every great story ever told has a compelling plotline, so you must have a purpose for coming here today. For this program to work you first must answer the question, Why am I here?
To find the correct emotions which will effortlessly lead you to your most rewarding workouts, it will be useful to stay centered on the benefits you wish to experience through this fitness program. Furthermore, it will also be to your advantage to set a goal to achieve something outside of your efforts at the gym. This goal should be something compelling to you; a goal that sends chills down your spine when you consider it. The more meaningful the goal is to you, the more powerful the emotions you’ll be able to channel in the workouts to come.
Before I made this 30 day “Quest” process into a fitness program emphasizing emotional and spiritual psychology, I’ve seen a participant succeed in raising half a million dollars. Some participants have found and kept a loving relationship by using this Quest process as their psychological center. Something happens when the deeper recesses of your mind become focused on a 30 day outcome which pulls your body along for the ride.
The 30 day goal you set for yourself can be anything attainable and have nothing to do with your work in the gym. You might want to raise money for a cause, search for a new job, or take your love life to the next level. The great news about this goal is that, regardless of whether you win or lose, your body will be the better for it! But you need a “plot” for your story to move forward. Choose one wisely.
So think about that now. I’ll put spaces below to help you brainstorm…
Why am I here? Why do I want to get into shape?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
What do I wish to experience outside of the gym that would be very compelling for me? (Think along the lines of career, relationships, self-growth, spiritual or personal understanding.)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
As the days progress throughout the next month things will unravel like an epic story. Throughout the program in fact we will refer to moments in well-known “epic” stories like Wizard of Oz and Star Wars. This will put in perspective “where” you are in your own personal journey and help decipher why you might be feeling specific moments of fear or doubt and when to expect moments of inspiration, hope, and exuberance. If you know the maze you’ll know better how to master the navigation of it.
Take One Day At a Time
Step 1: Lay Out Your Workout Routine
Choose your fitness workout based on your goals. Chapter 3 will lay out suggestions for workouts based on your experience level and on how you wish to transform your body. There are specific routines for toning muscle, building mass, or losing weight. Pick the workouts suitable for your needs and goals.
Step 2: Follow the Interactive Emotional Exercises During Your Physical Workout
The book is divided off with specific Interactive Emotional Exercises to do every day for the next 30 days. Each day you come to a workout you will have new interactive activities to perform between each physical exercise set. You may write down these exercises in a notebook or use the journal included with this book. This will be the heart of your 30 day program.
Some suggestions…
1. Do as the book suggests and perform the Interactive Emotional Exercises between physical sets. If this proves too time consuming or challenging, try one of the following…
2. Do the Emotional Exercises in this workbook first and then review them during your workout.
3. Think about the Emotional Exercises during your workout then log them in the workbook after your workout.
Keep your workbook or notebook on you at every workout. You will use it during “active rest” periods between sets.
Remember, even if you’re taking the day off of working out, continue TO DO the Interactive Emotional Exercises every day! You won’t have a day off from these Emotional Exercises until the 30 days are up.
Here’s an example of an Interactive Emotional Exercise you might perform between sets during “rest periods”:
***
DAY 1: Workout Focused on Legs
Exercise 1: Barbell Leg Squat (3 Sets of 12)
After the First Set:
Emotional Exercise 1: List any purposes you can think of why you want to start a fitness routine. (Take 30 seconds if you’re on a conditioning regimen, one minute if building mass and/or strength.) Answer the questions in the lines provided. Think about the things you want to accomplish outside of the gym and add it to this list.
1. Increase my confidence level.
2. Become a different person in 30 days.
3. Enhance my spiritual life.
4. Develop content for a book.
***If you run out of time during the break, continue the Interactive Emotional Exercise during your next break between sets.
Again, DO THESE EVERYDAY. Even if you take the day off, leave the physical exercise line blank but do the emotional exercises everyday. The emotions will support your will to workout.
Keep in mind you should take 2-3 days of physical exercise off per week. No need to overdo it or to over train.
Step 3: Journal Your Insights Everyday
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, recommends the practice of keeping “Morning Pages” which is the act of a “free flow” writing put down on paper. This free writing process will help things come up that you might not have been aware of before. It can help in identifying your emotions during the 30 day program. It’s important for the unconscious mind, which can influence your emotions, to guide you toward more lively workouts. Even if you think you have nothing to write about, just write about your thoughts about wanting something to write about. It will make a huge difference!
The most important skill to obtain is being able to identify your feelings as you feel them! Journaling will help you to identify the emotion. This will help in bringing your mind and body into alignment.
Journal Often
I definitely recommend journaling, that is write about anything that comes to mind, for ten to twenty minutes per day. If you don’t have anything meaningful to contribute to your Quest when writing then just write about your feelings.
Example: “I’m not sure what to say but I’m supposed to write. So here I am writing. Come on, creative juices, where are you? Blah, blah, blah. Maybe I’ll eventually have something of significance to write about if I keep rambling and rambling and rambling...”
Something like that will work if you’re stuck.
Journal about your diet. Sometimes just being conscious of what you’re putting into your body on a daily basis will help you to make different choices throughout the day. But the point is - WRITE IT DOWN! If you don’t journal about your diet then you’ve lost that day! Even if you eat terribly, by writing it down your subconscious will remind you that you ate terribly and you’ll be more apt to make different choices as the days go by.
This will help you establish a new habit.
Habits are everything in this Quest. You’re not expected to change everything today. But you are expected to adopt a little new habit here, make a new choice there. Journaling everyday is your first step in changing everything. Demonstrate to yourself that you are serious about a program: pick up a pen and write. Think of it as a personalized letter to your subconscious and to the “Real You”.
In case you’re wondering: Yes, the Emotional Exercises you’ll complete in this book do count as journal entries. That means all you have to do is show up, follow along in the book, and the journaling will take care of itself, connecting you to a relationship with your emotional mind. This relationship is intended to help you become aware of the truths, or beliefs, that move you to swift action. Truth = Clarity = Action = Consistency = Results.
What journaling, and ultimately all the Interactive Emotional Exercises, is intended to do help you think positively and productively, monitoring the thoughts that will be most constructive in sculpting your new body. Notice the choice of words - "Monitoring", not "Controlling".
Journaling keeps a record of who you were, who you are, and even indicates who you’re going to become.
This is Your Story, take the time to tell it so you can appreciate it later. Aren’t there times you wish you could travel back in time and tell your younger self about the future? Aren’t there times you’d like to have your future self come back to give you some guidelines about what to do? Journaling helps to create this kind of foresight by establishing that relationship with the subconscious.
The Author’s Journal as a Guide
I’ve provided to you my journal after each one of the 30 day segments. My journal is meant to be a guide and an example for you should you need more information to go on. It’s my own “story” that is intended to be an example of how to do the Interactive Emotional Exercises.
My journal had taken place over a 30 day span between mid-August to mid-September when I was journaling a Quest with the intention of “looking good” for a theatrical production where I had to appear on stage in a pair of boxer shorts. My goal was to sculpt my body for the purposes of increasing my confidence on stage enough so that I could be more concerned about my performance and not be so focused about what people were thinking about my body. This was my first goal going into the 30 days but the goal eventually turned into the writing of this book.
Ignore my journal if it doesn’t make sense or doesn’t serve you. It won’t hurt my feelings.
Respect the Natural Order
Don’t try to understand the entire 30 day Quest by skipping ahead in the book. You must DO the physical and emotional work one step at a time to truly “get it”. This isn’t an intellectual journey, it’s an emotional and physical one. The intellectualizing of this should come upon reflecting on the 30 days after the fact.
The Hero’s Journey model has a natural order to take you to maximum results:
1. Thought is Creation. You’ve thought about picking up this book and following the directions contained here within. A creation is launched and that creation is a better body for you while learning some valuable wisdom along the way.
2. Consistent Thoughts Create Emotional Responses. If you’re considering following through on the 30 day commitment, taking it seriously, it should fill you with some emotion. It might be hope, fear, anxiety, excitement - whatever it fills you with should fuel your workout.
3. Consistent Emotions Create Actions. This book provides the emotional gateways to more effective workouts. The “Action” takes the form of a Leg Squat or a Bench Press or any physical technique to sculpt your body.
4. Consistent Actions Create Patterns. Your patterns are what create your character. Are you now someone who works out often? Are you someone who sits on the sidelines and hopes to be fit? What are your patterns?
5. Your Character IS the Creation. Your character inspires your thoughts. And the cycle will begin again, asking you to create a new character of which to express your spirit and thoughts. Maybe your new character will be a complete makeover or it may simply apply a few minor adjustments to who you already are.
Are you willing to get in the middle of these patterns and change the cycle? Thought leads Emotion, Emotion leads to Action, Actions lead to Patterns, Patterns lead to Character, Character leads to Thought. And on the cycle goes...
You can’t just change your patterns without changing your thoughts. Likewise just changing your thoughts won’t change your patterns. In the middle of this cycle are your emotions. Emotions -- understanding this "middle man" between thought and action -- is where you will gain a better understanding of bringing quality to your life, your workouts.
If you’re now tired of reading the intellectualizing of all this, the next step is clear. Go to Chapter 3, decide on a sequence of physical exercises, then go to DAY 1 in Chapter 6 to begin your workouts!
Click Here to go back to the List of Chapters.
No comments:
Post a Comment